appreciating the garden kitchen

 I sure am appreciating the big sink and the finished countertop in the little garden kitchen.  I use them for so many of my weekly jobs and now that the busy spring season is beginning, it's making things so much more efficient and doable than in past years.  

That countertop sat unfinished for waaay too long but finally, last summer, I asked Richard who does a lot of tiling work on Mayne Island to come help me get the job done.  And he did.

Here he is, happily applying the grout to the pebble tiles.

Nowadays, harvesting and packaging sunflower and pea shoots is much more convenient!

So nice to have the big sink with running water (hot water too!) and counter on which to put things....

Fun to take a look at the pics I took way back when we were building...this is the wall where the sink and countertop now sit....cob wall about half way up, window frame in, electrical boxes and conduits in, pipes for water in, niches started....and already a little flower bouquet in a niche...(just can't wait to decorate!)

The locally milled cedar window sills and frames made and installed by Aaron Somerville.

Tracy, one of the co-founders of Cobworks here on Mayne Island did a beautiful job of plastering the walls.  Here she is with her torch...one of the first jobs before applying the indoor lime plaster was to burn off all the little bits of straw that are left sticking out of the cob after it dries so we could get a nice smooth finish.

The sink and window wall.  Lime plaster beautifully finished by Tracy and earthen floor finished too....time to build the cupboards and countertops.....

For the countertop, we used some darker brownish grey pebbles and some lighter creamy white ones too.  I got them from a tile store and they came on 12" x 12" mesh backing.

  Some spots were easier than others when it came to fitting them in around all the curves and wonky spaces.  Richard did a fabulous job.

Applying the grout.

Finished grout.

More finished countertop.

Pretty garden peonies on just finished countertop, last summer.

If you're interested in small hand built homes and spaces built with cob and other locally sourced and natural materials, you may be interested in the new book by Lloyd Kahn.  Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter  Take a look.  There's so much good stuff in this book, I may never be finished with it. 

Lots of inspirational photos and interesting stories of the people who build these little spaces and 4 pages featuring Mayne Island's Pat Hennebery and Cobworks. (including my little garden house!)  If you live on Mayne Island and are interested, Lynne at Miner's Bay Books has a few copies in stock so you can take a look and get a copy on-island.  (I hear Tanner's in Sidney has it in stock too)

Some good photo links from the book:

ProtoHaus

weeHouses

Little House on the Trailer

The Shed of Reality

.....but there are so many good ones!!....you'll have to see for yourself, I can't possibly list them all!

Also found this Tiny Homes book trailer that you might enjoy watching.

And while I'm at it, if you'd like to learn more about cob and building, permaculture and living in community, this internship with Pat Hennebery, Cobworks and OUR Ecovillage might be just the thing for you to do!

apple trees and caterpillars

The apple trees have received their seasonal pruning and the buds are swelling.  It's such a joy to behold the newly pruned shape of the apple trees.  

We're expecting a monumental caterpillar year on Mayne Island this year.  Everybody's talking about it.  It's cyclical.  Every 7 or 8 years the caterpillar population goes wild.   Dave (he does the pruning for me) was picking off lots of egg cases from the branches as he pruned.

The tent caterpillars around here love apple trees.  They also love the alders that grow outside the garden fence and surround the garden.  They love the cherry tree and the currant and gooseberry bushes too...roses too....sigh.....

I began my pest control efforts last summer, picking off the egg masses that had just recently been deposited by the moths.  The cases are so interesting.  Really!...like styrofoam on the outside.  Once you peel it off from the branch, you can see all the little round eggs on the inside that are just waiting for the following May and the sun's warmth so they can hatch and devour the tree leaves.

It's a satisfying feeling to peel those suckers off a branch.  I became slightly obsessed with collecting up big piles of egg masses.  lol.

It was summertime and so there were quite a few yellow jacket wasps around and it took them no time to find my collections....they were interested in dinner!  It was amazing to watch them chow down....(they actually started dragging pieces away from the pile!!)  wow.

This is what the egg mass looks like when on the branch in the summer time...looks like this one's on one of the jostaberry bushes.

Oh. oh.  This one got away on me last summer.  When an egg mass is left on the tree and the eggs hatch, this is what happens and it's best to remove the tent as soon as you see it....before the wrigglies get this big...yuck!

It's much easier to remove the eggs in the winter...no leaves and fruit on the tree to get in your way and the rainy season softens them so they come off the branch much easier.

They look quite different after the winter rains, you can really see all the little eggs on the outside....

This one looks like some of the eggs are gone...a little birdy has been feeding, perhaps?  I don't know, I wonder....

Anyway, I noticed that a few recent visitors to the garden (all who live on Mayne Island) didn't know about these caterpillar egg sacks....and were so interested to learn.  I remember how happy I was when I learned about them back when I first moved here so I hope this will be helpful to some.....it really is so much easier to take as many of these off now.  For me, the wielding of loppers while on ladder to cut tented branches is a garden misery so the fewer of those adventures I have, the better...

Dreaming of APPLES!  ....and hoping for a  good harvest this year!

It's that time of year again...Spring!!          
The cherry tree is blooming full of it's beautiful little pink flowers once again.   But snow's in the forecast this weekend.  oh. oh.
Check out this great little video featuring the ideas and words of Ira Glass...all truly important things to keep in mind when aspiring to be a successful market gardener and/or home gardener too!  Never stop, just keep on doing the work. And keep on learning, keep on getting better and better at it!  That's how it works.  Livin' life.